They had hoped to do it all themselves. But, as many new parents have realised before them, sometimes you need an extra pair of hands.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have bowed to the inevitable and hired a nanny for their seven-week-old son, Prince George.
They have decided to keep it in the family, however – asking William’s former nanny, Jessie Webb, to come out of retirement and lend a hand part-time.
Palace sources had let it be known as recently as June that the pair had no plans to pay for extra care.
But, sources admit, William and Kate have quickly realised they are not a ‘super-couple’ and need some help, particularly as the duchess is slowly returning to limited royal duties.
Miss Webb, 71, cared for the prince and his brother, Harry, in the early 1990s. She was eventually let go by Princess Diana, who often became jealous of those her sons grew close to.
But William, now 31, enjoyed a warm, loving relationship with his nannies, and has always regarded Miss Webb fondly. He ensured she was a guest of honour at both his 21st birthday party and his wedding two years ago.
Now, some 25 years on, she is looking after William’s own son – and the Cambridges believe George couldn’t be in better hands.
Nanny Webb was on duty last night when the couple took to the red carpet for only their second official engagement since their son’s birth on July 22.
A senior royal source told the Mail that she was working for the Cambridges on an ‘ad hoc’ basis. ‘Jessie Webb is helping the couple out,’ the source said. ‘It was a very recent decision.’
Miss Webb was first employed by Prince Charles and his wife to look after William and Harry when the future king was seven and about to start at prep school.
It was the spring of 1990. While to the outside world all seemed well, Miss Webb soon found herself walking a tightrope as Charles and Diana’s relationship disintegrated.
‘Diana was often in tears and there were frequent rows,’ a former Kensington Palace figure recalled.
‘Jessie did not see it as her job to console the princess, so she did her bit to keep the children occupied and out of the way.’
Miss Webb (left) next to Princess Diana and Prince William at Prince Harry 's school sports day in 1992
In their private lives the royal couple had already made their choices. The prince had returned to the warm embrace of his former love, Camilla Parker Bowles, and Diana was being consoled by Life Guards officer James Hewitt.
Indeed, while on the surface it still seemed so normal, the reality was that by now the prince and princess were not just living separate lives but also maintaining separate homes.
Increasingly, Charles remained at Highgrove during the week, while Diana and the boys were in London.
It was against this background that Miss Webb began her duties. For generations, royal nannies had been picked from a relatively limited social circle.
But with her warm Cockney informality and no-nonsense approach, Miss Webb seemed just the person to bring a bit of much-needed cheer into the household.
Miss Webb enjoyed a healthy appetite herself and she thought the boys, especially Harry, needed feeding up. The nursery fridge groaned with sausages, bacon, buns, cakes of every description, and biscuits.
Family: The Duke, Prince William and Duchess of
Cambridge, Catherine with their son, Prince George in the garden of the
Middleton family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire
But the food all went. Indeed chef Mervyn Wycherley was once overheard saying of Miss Webb: ‘If I [didn’t] lock the kitchen door we would have no food left.’
Little boys, she would tell anyone who was listening, needed meat and potatoes.
At first her large, reassuring presence helped diffuse the often fraught atmosphere between Charles and Diana, who by now were scarcely talking to each other.
She took charge on weekend trips to Cirencester Park, where the boys played with their own cut-down polo sticks. Miss Webb, often described as a ‘like a ship in full sail’, seemed untroubled by the gathering marital storm.
The Duchess of Cambridge arriving at the inaugural Tusk Conservation Awards at the Royal Society in London yesterday
When William went away to Ludgrove school in the autumn of 1990, Jessie had only Harry to look after.
If anything William’s absence – Diana missed him terribly – made the atmosphere even worse. By the summer of 1991, the fairytale marriage was over in all but name.
It was inevitable perhaps that as Charles and Diana lashed out, others got hurt, too. One casualty was Jessie. ‘In fact both Charles and Diana had decided it was time she should move on,’ said a former Palace figure.
‘He found her too big, too brash and generally too loud. Diana just stopped talking to her, Jessie never really knew why.’
So it was agreed that she would leave ‘KP’ when Harry started at Ludgrove in the autumn of 1992.
But Jessie was not brusquely discarded. Instead she found work courtesy of Diana’s Kensington Palace neighbour Princess Margaret. She went to work for Viscount Linley and his wife Serena, where she remained for several happy years.
She then moved to a royal apartment in Kennington, South London, to enjoy her retirement.
Initially, as revealed by the Mail, William and Kate had hoped to do without any outside help for their baby son.
Indeed, the duchess broke with royal tradition and eschewed the services of a maternity nurse after his birth, preferring to go and live with her parents in Berkshire for almost a month.
Neither were keen to advertise for a carer and as far as William was concerned, there was only one person he trusted for the job: Nanny Webb.
Although not entirely keen to go back to work in view of her age, she was apparently ‘delighted and flattered’ to have been asked. She has been in Wales with the couple for the last week before returning with them to London on Tuesday.
‘The truth is she loves William very much and was happy to do anything she could to help out,’ a source said.
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